Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Still life

Fancied a bit of a change so I headed for the warm studio to paint a still life. Below is rough layout of the route I take with these paintings. The whole process is done in one session and probably takes about 3 hours or so. When working on these pictures I generally use Michael Harding oil paints and a bit of turps, no oil.

Stage1.

Wait for the weather to turn and retire to the studio. Block in the drawing on canvas and make a map of where the main shapes will sit.

Step2. Block in the main shapes with a rough approximation of the colour, eliminating any detail. Have a coffee.

Stage 3. Develop the shapes and refine the colours, check outside...yep, still snowing.

Step 4. relate the shapes to each other and adding the shadows etc.

Step 5. Pull it all together stepping well back and add highlights and finishing touches etc. Check outside...yep still snowing, have another coffee.